In advertisements broadcast on Swiss television, the company stated that its special burger contained alpine cheese – Alpkäse in German. This was sufficient to draw the attention of the German-language Agricultural Information Service (LID), a public relations and news service backed by farming associations.

LID’s interest was piqued by the use of the term “alpine”, which is restricted under Swiss law. In this case, it can only describe cheese produced in the mountains with milk from cows spending the summer on alpine pastures.

While McDonald’s did source its beef from Simmental cattle, it purchased its cheese slices from Emmi, Switzerland’s biggest dairy company. The cheese is not produced according to the alpine criteria and cannot carry the label.